While the control over aircraft positions in and around airports has become highly sophistocated, the control over the descent of the aircraft as the aircraft is approaching the control area of the airport is still left primarily to the manual control of the pilot of the aircraft. Because this descent profile has been primarily a manual operation, difficulties have been encountered in the pilot arriving at the control point set by the airport either too fast or too slow and also overshooting or undershooting the control point set by the airport. When the aircraft misses the control point, it can still be manually corrected, however, the correction technique usually requires additional fuel consumption and/or is uncomfortable to the passengers onboard the aircraft. The manual correction at the end of the descent around the control point set by the airport has resulted in a higher cost of operating the aircraft because of this wasted fuel. Due to the recent escalation in aircraft fuel costs, the cost of this wasted fuel has become significant and aircraft operators are seeking to minimize the amount of wasted fuel. Various efforts have been made to provide the pilot with the necessary information to arrive at the control point set by the airport to reduce the likelihood of the control point being missed at the end of descent. The major problem with these prior techniques is that the flexibility of such techniques is limited therefore requiring a lot of effort on the part of the pilots to use such techniques. This reduces the pilot's concentration on the actual flying of the aircraft which creates a safety hazard.